WOMEN OF INDIA - 11.

(Delivered at the Shakespeare Club House, in Pasadena, California, on January 18, 1900)

 For Recap -Read Part-1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, & 10 -

THE LECTURE :- Part-11.

Thus say our books: direct the pre-natal influence.

Why should mother be worshipped?

Because she made herself pure.

She underwent harsh penances sometimes to keep herself as pure as purity can be.

 For, mind you, no woman in India thinks of giving up her body to any man; it is her own.

The English, as a reform, have introduced at present what they call "Restitution of conjugal rights", but no Indian would take advantage of it.

When a man comes in physical contact with his wife, the circumstances she controls through what prayers and through what vows!

For that which brings forth the child is the holiest symbol of God himself.

It is the greatest prayer between man and wife, the prayer that is going to bring into the world another soul fraught with a tremendous power for good or for evil.

Is it a joke?

Is it a simple nervous satisfaction?

Is it a brute enjoyment of the body?

Says the Hindu: no, a thousand times, no!


But then, following that, there comes in another idea.

The idea we started with was that the ideal is the love for the mother — herself all-suffering, all-forbearing.

The worship that is accorded to the mother has its fountain-head there.


She was a saint to bring me into the world; she kept her body pure, her mind pure, her food pure, her clothes pure, her imagination pure, for years, because I would be born.

Because she did that, she deserves worship.

 And what follows?

Linked with motherhood is wifehood.

Swami Vivekananda
To be continued  ...